March 26, 2011

It was weird. I had no idea what I was doing, nor what possessed me to grab my dick and wrench on it beside seeing a beautiful woman on the television. I can still remember the feeling of the sofa on my bare ass (fine grit sandpaper), the woman (Vivica A. Fox), and the weird feeling I had seeing semen for the first time.

Two major things that I think about often from that evening are the movie that motivated the action (Booty Call) and feeling obligated to tell my mother about what happened.

March 9, 2011

Three Christmases ago I got caught masturbating on an airplane.

I was coming back from a week-long vacation in Maui, which would have been the most blessed, restful, and non-masturbation-inducing trip of my life had it not been for one thing: I was with my family. Sisters, parents, all of them, cooped up so tight in a hotel suite that if I even so much as breathed on my genitals someone would overhear and smother me with guilt. At least that’s what it felt like. Plus, we all used the same bathroom, so the thought of defiling the communal shower with a half ounce of pleasure soon to be stepped on by the feet of my sisters eroded any boner faster than a game of Tetris played backwards on expert mode. This reality alone would foster the festering of frustration, but the pain and anxiety of my perturbed protuberance was compounded by the fact that I was in Hawaii, scantily clad capital of the United States. No matter where I was or what I looked at, spandex-wrapped mounds of flesh burst through and bounced into every cone of vision, tugging along behind them the reminder that I was alone on this island, and that the only available option for the cord of wood I carried between my legs was to build myself a funeral pyre. For six sleepless nights and seven sweaty days this was my Island. It was not a good place to be.

On the plane back home, sandwiched between my mother and an armrest, a commercial came on the inflight movie service starring Charlize Theron. It was for a perfume, and in the commercial Charlize walks towards the camera, stripping away her clothing one item at a time until all that is shown are her bare shoulders up and a vial of this scent potion. For less than a second there is maybe a whisper of cleavage on the screen. But that’s all I needed. The pressures of the past week hit like a fist, and I am as rigid and shaking as a tuning form for an orgasm. There is no time to reconsider. I know what I have to do. I turn to my mother. “I don’t feel so well,” I croak, holding my stomach, “I’m going to go use the bathroom.” Minutes later I have secured my crime scene, the chrome toilet before me shining like a robotic halo of hope. I squeeze the fragment of Ms. Theron’s breasts between my shut eyelids, lower my pants, and get to work.

I am six pumps in when the door swings open. There is a flood of shock, fear, embarrassment, and confusion, the expected garnish of a strange man interrupting an even stranger man’s solitary ascent to the Mile High Club. In the syrupy seconds between meeting this stranger’s eyes—hand secured, shaft in the full upright position—and having him slam the door closed, the only thought that exists is turned up to the light shining over us, this light that had gone on when I closed the bathroom door, this light that had led me to believe I was safe, this light that had lied. “Oh,” I stammer, but before any more sound can escape the man is a memory. With the door closed and light on and silence returning, I stand still for a minute and collect myself. I wait. There are no shouts, no calls to action. No gunshots. This dirty bomb can go off. So I let it. It is a ticker tape parade for a home coming, a thunder of horns for the hero’s gallant return. I clean off the toilet and flush, all sins washed away by the cleansing blue blood of the savior. I open the door and standing in front of me is the man, the final obstacle, spattered sweat on his brow and his eyes on his shoes, defeated. For a moment I consider shaking his hand, an added congratulations to me, but I dismiss the idea and make for my seat, 30,000 feet above the earth, drifting away from Hawaii, and free.

March 4, 2011

Bicycles are a wonderful invention. The day one learns to ride a bicycle without training wheels is a day not soon forgotten, like the day I discovered a new sensation while idly coasting over some gravel. Unwittingly I had begun a new journey, one that would land me on a tired blue couch in the guidance counselor’s office of my elementary school.

At the tender age of six I was completely wrapped in the white cloak of innocence. I hadn’t the slightest clue that what I had felt was just a small part of something much, much bigger and best done in private. And, now I would learn the hard way about the importance of being discrete. I was infatuated with this new sensation. Soon after its discovery I abandoned the bike for the arm of the couch, and then for the corner of my miniature plastic classroom chair, where my classroom teacher quickly smudged out the light of that type of learning. After a brief scolding I was sentenced to the guidance counselor, which is rather light punishment considering I was attending a Catholic School. I shudder to think how a nun would have responded to this situation, she definitely would not have sent me out of the room during class time to play games with a woman whose catch phrase was, “and how does that make you feel?” Ironically, the counselor didn’t ask me that question this time. Instead she talked in that delicate, labored tone, adults use when forced to explain to a child a topic closely related to sex. There was no birds and bees talk. But in that all-too careful tone she explained that I was not to indulge myself in this new discovery, but instead I was to go to an imaginary place inside my mind when I felt tempted. I spent many afternoons sitting on that couch listening to her describe a place that closely resembled the Garden of Eden. Although I never thought of this place outside of her office, in the way she intended, the experience was successful in one aspect: I learned discretion. Never again would I engage in this activity in a room full of people, and be so obvious about it.

My Catholic education did eventually quell this behavior. Sometime after I had discovered the real meaning of the sensation, I learned that I was committing a sin. It was the time of the year where the students are ushered into the church, not for mass, but to confess our sins. And, like the author of our first Marchsturbation post, I was handed a pamphlet which laid out every possible sin there was to commit. That’s where my eyes discovered that what I had been doing for years was a sin. Not ready yet to see the flaws of my religion, I faced a moral dilemma: Do I confess this to a total stranger, especially one who is male? Or, do I not confess, have mortal sin on my soul and risk the fires of hell should I get hit by a bus and die on my way home from school that afternoon? I chose the second option. Thankfully, I was not hit by a bus. I did, however, struggle with whether or not I should abstain from the act for years afterwards.

This story does have a happy ending, though (not exactly that kind). In the end I chose to think of it as self-love, not sinning. And, with the help of my new friend discretion, I have been able to practice this self-love without drawing unwanted attention.

March 2, 2011

Yes, I’m listening to the Foreigner song while I write this. No, I did not listen to the Foreigner song the first time I masturbated. I took the most obvious title for our month of masturbatory writing and it isn’t really even that fair of me because this isn’t exactly about my first time. It is actually about something that happened a little while after.

The first time I ever masturbated was probably a Monday or Tuesday because I always had my Religion Classes on Wednesday nights. Coming from a family of Catholics, but seeing as I was in a Public School, and seeing as how we went to church at most every other week I was condemned to attend RELIGIOUS EDUCATION PROGRAM classes every Wednesday night from Kindergarten to Junior year in High School. Every year, one of these classes was set aside for you to attend confession. What a horrible experience. The worst part of which was that I actually did feel better after confessing my sins and being absolved of them. I felt so good that I didn’t even feel like I had to do my penance half the time.

Back to the matter in my hand. Now that I think of it, this is probably the Xth anniversary of the first time I ever masturbated because those yearly confessions were in March so that all the little boys and girls had souls whiter than freshly laundered non-cum stained sheets. This fateful year I came into the church feeling pretty good about myself. I hadn’t killed anyone, hadn’t lied about anything big, and nothing had been stolen by these hands of mine. This particular year we got a fancy new confession accessory; as we entered the church to await our time in the confession room we received a small pamphlet to help us search our souls. (Just a note, we never got a booth. We always just sat in a room at a table facing the priest. I have never been allowed the cloak of anonymity when I confessed. Just brutal, honest eye contact. So brutal in fact that I would make up sins to confess, lest my actual list of sins seem too small.) I scanned the pamphlet, which had each of the 10 commandments listed and the major sin it corresponded to. Underneath each sin was another list of related, but lesser sins. I was cruising through the list when I decided to peruse the list of sins related to adultery to see if there was any titillating material. I thought I could skip the sixth commandment (it is the 6th for us Catholics) because I was acutely aware of the fact that I hadn’t had sex. I was so aware of this fact that I knew it more fully than even the omnipotent God could. I was flying through the list, rather disappointed at the lack of titillating material when I came to an entry that put me into deep freeze. The horror started in my eyeballs and quickly spread throughout my body in a shame aneurysm.

Have you ever masturbated?

YES! I just figured it out! I was so proud of myself! I thought I had discovered a new country of ecstasy! Described a new species of pleasure! Other people knew about this?!?! Other people hated me for it?!?! GOD hated me for it!?!? Oh Holy shit. I was so thrown off balance I didn’t confess anything that year. Just slunk into a pew and hoped I would be overlooked.

When I got home I hid the little pamphlet that had sheparded me into a new world of shame in the same place that I had the adult catalogue that had ushered me into my short lived glory. This hot gooey world of nerve explosions was being drowned out by a world rife with terms like “self-abuse” and “using one’s self as a mere means.” What a bunch of stuffy bull shit. I wasn’t using myself. I loved myself and always took myself out for dinner and dancing first.

What a strange tableau those printed materials made. The pleasures of exploration and the pain of shame wrapped together. The juxtaposition of these discoveries has put me into a strange place. Ever since then I run hot or cold. Either I have to make the choice to go whole hog into an expansive masturbatory lifestyle so chock full of half hour wank sessions that there is no room for second guessing and guilt or I live a life of masturbatory chastity. There is no middle ground. This might not seem terrible, but I think it is. That little pamphlet has made it hard for me to get to know myself sexually. I haven’t been able to explore or screw up in front of myself. Masturbation is important for that. It is important for allowing you to figure out just what the fuck is going on and how you go on about it. All my screw ups have been while I was screwing and thank god for those excruciating eye to eye confession sessions because the practice of pulling out my sin guts has made it easier to look my partner in the eye and let her know just why I am the way I am. In these cases I always make sure to do my penance with a vim and veracity that would astonish my former priests or maybe make those old, child touching bastards weak in the knees (that isn’t hyperbole, my parish was commonly used as a hide out for way ward touchers).

You know, it has taken years and years, but currently I am drowning my second guessing and guilt in a sea of self abuse. I think my guilt has started in with the cartoony three count and I don’t see the sea getting shallower anytime soon. So maybe my title is apt. I’m slowly making my way back to that very first moment of discovery. I’ve got a map and I’ve got a compass (or is sextant a more loaded metaphor?).

February 7, 2011

I was eight years old when I met my hero. It was in an independent bookstore in Albuquerque, and my fourth-grade class had walked the twenty blocks from our school, as a sort of minimalist field trip, in order to catch this man on his book-signing tour. Although he was English, old, and an international success, this man had somehow found it in his massive heart and air-tight schedule to stop into a city few people could even spell, let alone be proud to visit on a book-signing tour. My soul swelled. For as long as I could remember, I had wanted to write novels. Big, impressive novels about my dog exploring space with his robot assistant and best friend Kabir (which was, coincidentally, the name of my best friend at the time). Novels about slipping into sewer drains, fighting massive hair monsters, and still getting home for dinner. The drive to write consumed every ounce of my compact consciousness, and now I was face to face with the man who lived the life I dreamed of and did it with more talent than I could ever imagine possessing. I was a ball of gerbils on fire. After a brief talk about what it meant to be a professional writer (I scribbled notes as fast as I could into my massive 5-subject notebook), and my personal introduction to what an English accent sounded like in real life (every syllable like a french fry dipped in mercury), it was time to start the book signing.

The line leading up to the signing table was long and squirming with the bodies of my fellow fourth-graders, but it allowed me the minutes needed to compose this man the perfect compliment. I thumbed through my well-worn copy of the book about to be signed, pasting together in my mind character details and quotes that would paint me not only as this man’s purest fan, but also his most eloquent. He would hear my remarks, grab my tiny hand, and take me along on the lilac-scented road of literary greatness. And then I was in front of him. He looked up at me and smiled, and his silver beard framed his mouth like fog caresses an airplane wing. My circulation stopped. My mouth was dry and my mind was blank. I held out my novel to the man I admired.

“Stop right there!” he shouted, and I froze, “I bet I can guess your last name.” My knees were cartilage gravy. How could he possibly know? He looked up at me, silver cloud parting, “It’s Dover, isn’t it?”

I was speechless. He was wrong, of course, but how could I tell him no? Had he mistaken me for another Ben, more talented and adoring than myself? Had I missed out on the golden ticket of legendary novelist because I was born with the wrong last name? I stood there, silent and crumbling. Then he spoke again, “Right? Ben Dover? Isn’t that you?”

Ben Dover? ﻿Bend over. I had never heard this joke before, and as my mind pieced its brilliance together and my heart starting pumping, I leapt back to life in a jittery spasm of giggles and shrieks. This man. This man who was the greatest writer I had ever encountered was also the funniest comedian. And he had made a joke specifically for me. I do not remember anything else from that day. Only that man, his kindness, and his joke.

December 10, 2010

December 6, 2010

The bathroom in my new apartment has a massive window looking straight down into one of the busiest arteries of this city:

The Naturist's Throne

It is a striking and fluid portrait forming the backdrop of my business, and as the streams of people slowly trickle through its frame I include each and every one in the narration of my clandestine evacuation, creating an ever-evolving story of semi-public disposal tucked safely above the city’s line of sight.

October 17, 2010

July 3, 2010

(Part of a possibly-too-graphic series based on the misadventures had while stumbling around the figurative baseball diamond of sexual maturity. In no particular order.)﻿

As I reenter this crushed velvet cavern of coitus, I realize that two things are drastically different from the time that I left. One, I am no longer high, and my barricade of relaxed inebriation has been decimated by cold, immediate reality. Two, my secret hangs in the air like the smoky last breath of a firecracker, and now my Woman knows why I’m there and knows just what to do to take care of it. No matter what. No matter what. My nerves are wet concrete.

I try my best to stifle any oncoming sexual experience with nervous humor, a technique perfected from years of smothering sensual exploration with a handful of almost-girlfriends. “Assume the position?” I whimper as I plant my bare bottom on the towel-covered bed. There is no response. My Woman only stares at me, washing herself. Slowly, she approaches the bed. “Okay, Virgin,” she purrs, designating my pet name for the evening, “because you’ve never had sex I’m going to skip the blowjob and get on top of you, okay?” My dick hiccups with disappointment at this, but I can barely form words at this point, let alone express dismay. I nod my head. “Good.” And with that, she straddles me, pinning my development to the mattress like a frog for dissection. I am breathless and rigid, and then I am inside her. I am inside my first vagina.

A brief aside. As stated earlier, this Woman is approaching 30 with a constant line of men outside her door nearly every hour of the day, making it entirely possible that she has had sex with well over 2000 customers. And yet, the vagina. Like an otter’s fist around a deep-fried pad of butter, my Woman’s harbor is firm, slick, soft, and alarmingly accommodating. It sits atop a modest pile of vaginae explored before and since, and while a majority of this honor can be attributed to sentimentality, a larger part of it lies in the wonder of Kegel’s.

No matter how grand the vagina, however, the fact still remains that I am terrified. Aside from the overwhelming fact that I am now losing my virginity to a prostitute whose name I don’t know and whose sexual history I can’t even imagine, I have recently read that behind the velvet curtains of these rooms pimps wait like coked-up sharks ready to annihilate he who goes too far. So I stick firmly to the meek side of the spectrum—keeping my hands by my head, my eyes glued to the ceiling, and my mouth shut and grinning. My Woman stops. “What the fuck is this?” she snaps, mimicking my hands where I can see them! position, “Are you a fucking tree?” I pretend to laugh. “No… I just don’t know what I’m doi–” “Shut up,” she snaps again, “Just shut up and move your ass.” This is the only sexual advice I have ever received from a lover, and I bury it in my heart like a perfumed stone tablet. Then I bury something else. I attack the scar tissue of my virginity with a swift and focused scalpel, falling into the rhythm of fornication while stealing a peek at this strange territory that many enter but few understand. I am having sex. And as if that fact isn’t a ruby Cadillac in itself, my Woman drives it home, punctuating the experience with greasy and gratuitous dirty talk, phrases like “It’s super wet for you, Virgin” dripping like candles in the space between us. I ignore the awkward pet name, and keep on driving.

And then, without warning, she is off of me, kneeling at the side of the bed and administering a handjob like a frantic, misled eye exam. I am confused, and when I ask why the change, my Woman points to her pink Gucci watch and says, “Fifteen minutes. You have to finish.” Apparently somewhere in the fine print of her foreplay I had been instructed on a sort of 50 Euro for fifteen minute option, and in my nervous silence I had accepted. But things are different now. I am no longer the cowering Virgin of fifteen minutes prior. I am Ben Taylor, Fucker of Woman, and no Fucker of Woman will be made to come in a handjob. Never again. Now I wear the figurative pants of transaction. “I’ll tell you what,” I say, cashing out on my confidence, “You get back on top, and then I’ll finish.” She hates this idea, I can tell, but humors me, “Okay, but you have to promise met that you’ll finish. Okay?” I promise. She remounts, and instantly I can tell I’ve made a mistake. The sex now is not even that. It is a quick and frigid rehearsal, all the guilt of masturbation with some condescending frosting and a tart dash of hate. She is silent now, a buoy at sea, and I know that if I am not out of her in the next two minutes, a brief ruffling of curtains will be the last thing I ever see.

I panic. “Gotta finish, gotta finish, gotta finish,” I strain, a more perverse Thomas approaching a more perverse train station. And then—nothing. Worse than nothing, something. Something disastrously inadequate, a baby-dick limp denial of sexual gratification deflating like a pink flamingo pool toy under the six-hundred pound sunburned hide of expectation. I am beyond repair, and my Woman immediately notices. She laughs, coldly, “It’s not even hard anymore.” “I know,” I sigh, defeated. She lifts herself up, still straddling, and grabs my slunken white flag in her hand. “See this?” she says, locking her eyes to mine, “limp dick doesn’t fuck.” Just like that. Limp dick doesn’t fuck. As if this were the ultimate lesson of life, the parchment unfurled at the zenith of Everest. Limp dick doesn’t fuck. As if somewhere in my thousand hours of porn—somewhere amid the callous sucking and fucking I would subconsciously take as the manual to my manhood—I had come to believe that a limp dick could fuck, could please every woman and sing the anthem of orgasm, and thankfully, praise be to He!, here was a Woman to set me on the path. Limp dick doesn’t fuck! Limp dick doesn’t fuck! Hello, sir? Yes, I have my toothbrush and all the advice I will ever need. One ticket to adulthood, please!

“There is really nothing I can do for you,” she says, and I smile. Like many before it, ridiculousness is the balm to this burn. I thank her, and I pull up my pants. We talk as I dress, two people connected, and she asks me how old I am. “Eighteen,” I stumble, and feel like crying for the first time since this started. “That’s good,” she says cheerfully, “that means you have time to do it right!” Ouch. I dodge, and parry with humor, “Yeah, and at least I won’t be a tree next time.” She laughs, really laughs, and for that second I taste what I paid for. “Oh, I like you, Virgin…” and then she stops. “But I guess you’re not a virgin anymore, are you?” And it’s true. I am no longer a virgin. And with that truth in my veins I am ready, ready for the rest of my life, and so I give her the universal signal to communicate this: I give her a high five. Then I leave, a new man armed with a story of his decade, a man who abandoned his virginity in Amsterdam, botched but beautiful, and ready.